Can Weed Make You Like Your Family A Little Bit More?

Being open with your family about weed can have a positive impact on everyone involved.

Initially, making marijuana a comfortable conversation topic for families can be touchy and tough. Despite the assumed negative connotations of weed dissipating over the past few years, it can still be a taboo topic depending on your family’s understanding of pot. Shedding light on the truths behind the effects of marijuana, especially as your parents grow into old age, can turn into one of the most helpful and constructive conversations you have ever had with those closest to you.

For me, it was extremely difficult at first to have this type of talk with my mom and dad. It was also hard for me to communicate my choices behind smoking to them. However, a few unfortunate circumstances during my early collegiate years presented the perfect opportunity for me to explain my marijuana use without feeling like a degenerate.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, depression is prevalent in about one in five people in the United States. Going away to college can often heighten symptoms of depression as well. Dealing with some personal issues of my own and not having much success with doctor-prescribed medicine, I turned to weed in college to help ease my own social anxiety.

At first, my parents didn’t understand and suspected that I was indulging solely to chase a high; it was also very difficult to be the one to start the conversation. But, as I’ve noticed with most issues in life, if you approach your problems with confidence and honesty upfront, respectable humans will deal it right back to you.

Explaining to my parents how marijuana made me more comfortable in crowded social situations and eased my running mind has reduced paranoia in my life be a tenfold. My parents accepted how using marijuana can be beneficial toward easing the symptoms of depression, meaning that I no longer had to hide a portion of my life from some of the most important people in it.

After that talk, marijuana became a topic that I could discuss with my family without feeling chastised, and it soon became something that my mom and grandpa looked to when dealing with their own personal problems. My grandpa used weed-laced edibles to help with his appetite while he was fighting cancer. My mom also deals with rheumatoid arthritis in her hands and has recently started going to the chiropractor for back issues, but she used my experience with treating an illness with marijuana to aid her own.

My grandpa has since passed away—however, my mom will look to marijuana occasionally when her hand is flaring up. Not only am I glad that I can discuss marijuana with my family with positive feedback, but more importantly seeing my mom be eased of her pain because of it puts me at ease as well.

If I never came up to my parents to discuss my marijuana use, who knows what alleys my mom would be going down to help calm her rheumatoid arthritis. This discussion can be a difficult one to have and even more stressful to bring up, but it can have positive life-altering effects. As you and your family grow older together, new problems will pop up with age. Marijuana can be one of the safest alternatives to keeping medical conditions at bay. That’s always a good starting point when having the weed conversation with your family.

published on July 14, 2016

Zak Kolesar

Zak is a freelance writer in Ohio currently finishing up his college degree and has ambitions to one day join the music industry.